


Bad Neighbours.

by allonsysilvertongue



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 11:35:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4520385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allonsysilvertongue/pseuds/allonsysilvertongue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hayffie AU where Haymitch and Effie are neighbours.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad Neighbours.

** Bad Neighbours **

Haymitch Abernathy hated his upstairs neighbour.

He was a reclusive man, preferring to keep to himself and avoid small talks with those living in the same apartment building but ever since _she_ moved in, he had been forced to leave his house (other than to get liquor) just so he could confront her.

In his opinion, Effie Trinket was obnoxious in her ways with a personality that could rival a bad storm. She was difficult and had a stubborn attitude. Above all – and he hated himself for this – she was attractive.

He was a man and naturally, he wasn’t at all blind to the way her clothes hugged her body or the way her hips sway when she walk, not to mention the legs. Oh, she had very long legs that he couldn’t help eyeing each time.

Haymitch had seen her a few times through his window when she returned home from work each evening and each time he caught himself gravitating towards the window waiting for her to walk down the pathway, he felt like a creeper. He didn’t like feeling that way and he blamed it on her, which only served to intensify the deep rooted dislike for his neighbour. Being attractive was another fault to her name together with constantly getting on his nerves.

Still, he supposed, her face was her saving grace, or her downfall, depending on how one view it. It was often caked with powder that made her appear pale. Her eyelids and her lips were painted in matching bright colours. At least he knew no matter how hot she was, he would never kiss those lips.

He often wondered if she worked in a circus. He would ask except their communication were often limited to them sniping and shouting at each other which would usually end with one of them slamming the door in the other person’s face.

Effie couldn’t stand him stumbling home drunk - not that he was troubling her – or vomiting in the trash bin next to the building’s elevator. “It stinks up the whole place,” she had scowled one evening, turning her nose at him. “And you could use a shower yourself.”

Suffice to say, the animosity was mutual.

That evening was no different. Haymitch hurled his empty bottle against the wall in frustration, unable to believe that it was happening again when he had told her countless times with the recent one being just three days ago that he couldn’t stand her music, singing and dancing.

For someone who insisted that he mind his manners each time their paths crossed, she certainly had no problem acting on the contrary because right now, she was behaving as if she owned this place at the inconvenience of others with that godawful music.

 _Spoilt little brat,_ he scowled.

Haymitch glanced up at his ceiling. He could hear her footsteps moving in perfect rhythm to the song which meant she was dancing.

_Maybe she really did work in a circus. A performer… Or a clown…_

Nonetheless, he acknowledged the fact that her dancing was better than having to hear her grunting and moaning like she had a year ago. He had to sit in his apartment and listen to it, and his whiskey couldn’t make him pass out fast enough. He spent that night on his bed wondering how she like to be touched or just where she like to be touched because her _‘right there, oh, right there,’_ was stuck in his mind in a torturous loop. He detested her for putting all sort of images in his mind.

**_“Make me thrill as only you know how, sway me smooth, sway me nowwww….”_ **

“What the fuck?!” he grumbled as she screeched above him.

He had had it. He stomped out of his apartment and marched upstairs, pounding loudly on her door.

“Shut the fuck up, sweetheart, some of us are trying to drink in peace.”

The movement stopped abruptly.

“Maybe _you_ should go to the bar,” came her reply.

“Oh, yeah? How ‘bout you stop the fucking racket in there and go to a damn club. They might appreciate your atrocious screeching better than I do,” he retorted.

She turned up the music just to spite him. He kicked her door in his anger only to regret it because his toe was throbbing in pain. Defeated, he returned to his apartment.

He snatched a bottle from his cupboard and slumped on the armchair, chugging the contents. A small part of him was absolutely certain that this was payment for what had happened during their first meeting when she moved in.

He had walked past her on his way back up to his apartment and when she had asked if he could lend a hand with the numerous boxes she owned, he had merely glanced at it, mumbling loud enough for her to hear. “If you’re stupid enough not to get a trolley when you’re movin’, then that ain’t my fault. Not gonna break my back for that. I’ll get you one of the boys upstairs to help you – that Mellark boy is real helpful.”

Effie had narrowed her eyes at him, not that he noticed because he was trying very hard to keep the contents of his stomach down. But he had burped and the next thing he knew, he had vomited on one of the boxes he had refused to carry in the first place.

The whole point of him drinking was so that he didn’t have to think but he was thinking right now. The gears in his mind was turning, trying to figure out how stop this madness when it came to him.

Haymitch hardly slept at night so it wasn’t difficult to put his plan in motion. He waited until the radio was switched off and that there were absolutely no movements coming from above. He gave it another hour just to be safe and then he went up, standing in front of her door and picking on her lock.

It opened without a hassle and he entered quietly, careful not to make a sound.

The layout of her apartment was similar to his and he had stood by her door many times before, confronting her on something or the other for him to remember where some of her furniture and electronics were located.

He wasted no time and went straight to the stereo. Without thinking twice, he jammed his knife into the speaker thus destroying it. Haymitch repeated his actions until he was sure that he had rendered the instrument useless and if that wasn’t enough, he ripped out the wiring from the back casing.

He glanced around her apartment. There was a strong urge to destroy her plasma television. It was probably too much. So instead, he ripped out the socket; no socket, no electricity, no television.

When he was done, he straightened up and smirked.

 _That’ll teach her,_ he thought savagely.

“Fuck!” he screamed suddenly, clutching the back of his head. It was throbbing in pain. He glanced behind his shoulder to see her standing over him with a bat in hand. She brought it down on him again, striking his shoulder. “Stop it!”

She raised her arms but before she could hit him, he grabbed her around the waist and tackled her. They toppled to the ground.

The moonlight spilled from the window, illuminating her terrified face.

Haymitch blinked.

The woman in front of him was unrecognisable, so very different but he knew without any shred of doubt that he was staring at Effie Trinket. He moved back a little, taking in her short nightgown.  

Haymitch swallowed. _No, no¸_ he shook his head, _she can’t be this beautiful._

“Have you gone absolutely crazy? You broke into my house!” she hit his chest. “I could get you arrested!”

“You were annoying,” he told her. It sounded so feeble and so childish to his ears even if it was the truth

“I’m annoying? That’s your reason? So you think that just because _you_ find me annoying – because trust me, everyone else here are on good terms with me – that it’s okay to break into my house? I find you rude and your manners sorely lacking but you won’t find me breaking and entering! What makes you think it was a good idea in the first place?!”

He snorted. “What? Just like how you think that it was a good idea to dance to music so fuckin’ loud every single day?”

“It isn’t that loud – I have some manners. You’re just hung over! Besides, nobody else has complaint except you!”

“Everybody else is too polite! But nah, not me, sweetheart, you need to be put in your place.”

“That’s such a misogynistic statement!”

“What’s that mean?”

“Never mind what it means,” she snapped. “Get off me, you buffoon. This is terribly improper.”

She pushed on his chest and turned her head to the side. That was when she saw the damage he had done. Effie let out an anguish wail and then her hands closed around his neck, squeezing it.

It was pitiful, he thought.

She didn’t have enough strength to choke him to death. Besides, he didn’t think she meant to choke him to death, anyway. She was merely letting out her frustration, the same way he had kicked on her door earlier.

“You know you’re really beautiful,” he told her out of the blue, a smirk on his lips as he pried her fingers from his neck.

The grip on his neck slackened making it easier to pry it away. She blinked up at him, looking very much like a deer caught in the headlights He had blindsided her with that compliment and she was momentarily taken aback.

“What?”

“You’re tryin’ to make me repeat it?” he chuckled. “Who’d have thought under that ridiculous make up, you’re actually pretty…. and hot,” he licked his lips as his eyes took in the sight of her.

It seemed to snap her back into reality because she scrambled into a sitting position and grabbed the throw blanket from the sofa to wrap it around her.

He chuckled in amusement. Even in the dim lighting of the room, he could see the blush spreading from her cheeks to her neck.

He paused after a while. The way she reacted, it was as if no one had ever told her that before and then his gaze fell on a scar above her shoulder blade. It lingered there.

“Please leave,” she whispered.

He stood up certainly at the sudden change. “Okay… Look, sweetheart,” he sighed, feeling bad all of a sudden. “You were gettin’ on my nerves with all that music and all those dancing, okay? I was just – I wanted it to stop, that’s all. I’ll fix this.”

“It helps me deal,” she lifted his eyes to look at him. “Just like your drinking… Isn’t it? Sometimes I hear… At night, when you’re not pacing your house like a mad man, you’re screaming. I don’t think you sleep much because of it. Do you?”

He narrowed his eyes. No one had assumed that his drinking was a clutch. They had always assumed he was a man with an addiction problem. Haymitch tugged on the collar of his shirt, uncomfortable with where the conversation was heading. He never thought she would be this perceptive or that she had formed those sorts of assumptions about him.

He needed to get out of here, the sooner the better.  Haymitch extended his hand and pulled her up.

“Why don’t we just stay out of each other’s way?” he grumbled finally. “It’ll be better for everybody, yeah?”

“I have no objections to that,” she agreed. “I don’t make it a habit to socialise with rude men who breaks into my house.”

He smirked.

“Although,” she tilted her head thoughtfully, brows crinkling, “you should know, Haymitch, that this isn’t over. Be careful with your stash of alcohol… It _might_ just go missing one of these days. Or something much worse. I can promise you that.”

The smirk disappeared off his face.

Haymitch wasn’t so confident now anymore.

What had he gotten himself into? How dangerous could a woman in a sexy black nightgown be to him?

He had no idea what she was capable of but one month later, under the pretext that she needed to borrow a plunger for her bathroom, she left the tap on in his shower, bathroom and kitchen, and flooded his house. She had taped a note on his door, _‘maybe this way, you’d be forced to have a shower and clean your house.’_

Somewhere along the way, he felt his body betraying him and they ended in bed. On her part, Effie never intended to but she fell for him and a year later, she moved in to his apartment.

They still argue except this time it wasn’t because they were bad neighbours. It was just how they were. 


End file.
